Semi-detached house in building area 8.5m x 15m (WxD)

Can you please make a height profile for the entire property? Not just the building envelope.

Attached. I am surprised myself how precise the data is. The steep rise on the far right in the profile are L-shaped stones leading to the higher neighboring property at the back.

Hello again,
maybe it gets annoying in the long run to thank every time. But I am genuinely excited! In some other forums, there is the option to "buy a coffee" for other members. Too bad that’s not possible here. How can one show appreciation?

Without limiting the base, the temptation would be great to raise the ground floor “garden-side at ground level” on a base, with the risk of the effect of a greater building height.

That would still be possible with a “basement on a slope” on soil at street level, which on average only sticks out 1.4m (and thus is not a full storey), right?

Without making the front edge of the building window line the building line, I see no legal basis for such an annex obligation. The reason for rejecting the division is that the rear part would then legally not be “developed” and thus have no prospect of a building permit (unless the front neighbor granted corresponding public space rights).

The legend of the development plan also indicates a building line (with a different pattern of dashes), but this is not used in our planning area. There is a building boundary at the front and back.
However, I did not ask about a purely street-parallel division, but about a flagpole/hammer-shaped plot with its own 3m-wide access road. At that moment, the previously positive mood in the conversation collapsed suddenly. I probably poked a hornet’s nest there.

I advise you, however, not to put yourself through the hassle, but to build a classic two-family apartment building with floors instead of a semi-detached house (even if the upper apartment is a maisonette).

That is also a fallback option. Of course, that entails some disadvantages. I am thinking, for example, of:

[*]Sound insulation between floors can never be as good as between two semi-detached halves with separate walls
[*]Garden separation and mutual privacy of the gardens is not possible with a two-family/multi-family house
[*]Both residential units would then have to be maisonettes, otherwise around 110 m² living space is the limit.
[*]If someday you divided an apartment, the two-family house would become a multi-family house with all the consequences for building regulations, parking spaces, etc.

None of the above points are must-haves. We expect compromises.

I will reply separately to .

I have adjusted this a bit to reality.



I would position the first entrance 20 cm higher than the street and the second one 60 cm.

In my opinion, 4 floors are too many.

had already calculated the living area without room partition walls etc. per floor with about 53 sqm .. which according to experience then leads to about 45 to 48 sqm max. living area including stairs per floor. (One must be clear that a 3m wall with 15 cm wall thickness costs around 0.45 sqm).

2 floors, so about 90-96 sqm plus attic would be the result of study in and then technology etc. still has to be accommodated.

Just to get a clear idea of the dimensions.

I have already sketched the ground floor and upper floor. Parents' bedroom in the attic studio.

But there is surely a good reason why you didn’t find anything suitable among these houses: your room program.

Well, there are indeed many houses with <50 sqm living space on the ground floor and 6 rooms. Only they are not square - and also have more than just 2 floors like the usual "city villa".

Yes, but at some point you have to get the thought loop started whether a horrendous effort with many compromises is worth it to achieve something that then no longer has anything to do with the original wish.

That is true, but our wishes are flexible. The starting point was: the plot allows 127 sqm footprint and 3 full floors (+attic + possibly basement on the slope). That makes something between 400 and 500 sqm floor area – which is much more than enough for 2 families with a total of 4 home offices.

I do not assume that you want to give part of the land to the friends out of mercy, but it is a question of cost. How expensive was the land?

Half a million. And yes, exactly. One should also make good use of this centrally located, wonderfully situated plot. Not down to the last cm², but definitely more than just for a 6-room single-family house. The neighbors have done the same. Only not as a semi-detached house, but as a two-family or multi-family house.

And how many euros of that are accepted by the building partners? One of you is definitely drawing a very short straw here.

Slowly it comes: at the back there is initially one less floor, which the front part would have.

That is correct, but not a reason for exclusion. It is not fixed that the two semi-detached halves must be completely identical.

And actually I don’t see your mentioned room program on these footprint dimensions. So you would have to stack high by force.

That’s fine. I’m not a stair enemy. The concept is also to retreat to a separate floor for the home office, as far away as possible from the hustle and bustle on the ground floor.

Then you will barely get your room program. But I say it right away: no one is allowed to come up with the argument that a straight staircase or a pantry or a dressing room was always a dream and that at least one or two wishes of these must be realized.

None of these is our wish. All that probably would have been generated by the layout form. But we are not there yet...

So, and what about the building partners? They don’t need their room program? They would have one floor less!
You can of course really put a third and then a creative roof on top. That was, I believe, freely selectable?

SD 35-45°, ridge direction free, dormer or inset max 50% of the width.

The question that arises for me: what were you thinking about when you bought? I mean, there certainly was no semi-detached house planning at that point?

Yes. With fallback options two-family house, multi-family house, single-family house. The single-family house would push us financially to the limit. For a multi-family house the bank wants to give us more money because they calculate hypothetical rental income and tax savings.

Furthermore, in my opinion, the differences and negative aspects for the front residential unit are very serious, which you wouldn’t necessarily want to endure for the next 20 years. The dividing line to the rear unit is very big. The little man watches how the one above drives past his house and 40 sqm garden and upstairs can call his 200 sqm his own. And then also an ideal division where you basically have to pay everything for the other (slope maintenance, settlement stones, etc.). No friendship can survive that, I bet!

You are right with your description of the situation - but this was communicated and agreed with the building partners from the beginning. They can (unlike us) still get out with little pain. We actually bought the plot alone for the time being.

My suggestion: put a nice two-story house there. Use the garden on the upper floor for yourselves. Then you also have space for a bike shed downstairs. Possibly you could plan a granny flat. However, you also have to borrow expensive money for the granny flat, which does not necessarily pay off. Here are the two residential units of a semi-detached house with their ground floors and garden share.

Looks very exciting, but I don’t quite understand yet. Two-story basement + upper floor (garden level) + 2nd upper floor. Flat roof not possible, so an attic on top? Where exactly is the dividing line between the two residential units now?